Captain Royce Williams tells Shawn Ryan that the airplane he brought home was riddled with 263 holes, and that after an admiral told him never to speak of what happened, he kept quiet for 50-some years. He tells the story on the Shawn Ryan Show, episode #355, and a short clip of it is embedded above.
Clip: Viral Podcast Shorts YouTube Short from the full source linked below.
What follows is his account, as spoken in that segment. This article adds no outside history or claims he does not make in the clip.
"How many bullet holes were on that plane?"
Ryan starts with the most concrete question he can ask: how many bullet holes were in the plane? Williams gives the figure as 263. He calls them perforations, which is a pilot's word for what a layperson would just call holes.
He explains where most of the damage came from. Mainly, he says, it was a 37 mm round that exploded right in the middle of the engine area. He adds a detail that surprises even his host: more of the holes were going out than going in. Ryan's reaction is a simple "Jeez."
What kept him alive
Williams says he was protected by armor plating in the back of the seat of his airplane, right where the damage happened. In his words, he was not injured except for bleeding at the neck from the gasket of his suit. He says he got that from spending most of his time looking behind him.
He does not dramatize it. The 263 holes, the exploding round and the neck injury come out as flat statements of fact, and the host's response is "That is incredible." The Short's own description places the flight in a November 18, 1952 fight with Soviet MiG-15s. The clip itself sticks to the damage and its aftermath.
An order to never speak of it
Ryan then asks how it felt when Admiral Briscoe told him to never speak of it. Williams says it was almost a shock, but that he accepted it for what it was worth. He says he made up his mind he was not going to talk about it ever, and he did not.
Asked how long it was before he could talk about it, he answers plainly: "50-some years." Ryan asks whether he told his wife. "Nope," Williams says. He adds that he did not tell anybody. Ryan's reaction is a stunned "Wow."
The detail lands because it is so ordinary. There is no speech about duty in the clip, just a man saying he decided to follow an order and then followed it for 50-some years.
When he was finally told he could talk
The turn comes at a cocktail party at headquarters. Williams says Admiral Richardson, who had spent a lot of time in intelligence, approached him and suggested there was more to the story than he was saying. Williams says he felt trapped. Richardson told him he wanted him to know it was no longer classified and that he could talk about it.
His first response, as he tells it, was modest: nobody was interested in something that was "past history years and years ago." But then he decided to tell his wife. He says he told her about the thing he had had to keep secret, and she said, "Oh, Roy."
That short reaction is the emotional end of the clip. After five decades of silence, the response from the person closest to him is two words.
A note on sourcing
Everything here is Williams' recollection from a podcast interview, and this article does not independently verify it. For the full conversation, including everything not used in the Short, the source episode is linked below.
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FAQ
How many bullet holes does Royce Williams say were in his plane?
He says 263, which he calls perforations, mainly from a 37 mm round that exploded in the engine area.
Why did Royce Williams stay quiet for 50-some years?
He says Admiral Briscoe told him to never speak of it, and that he made up his mind not to. He did not tell anyone, including his wife, until Admiral Richardson told him it was no longer classified.
What did his wife say when he finally told her?
He says she responded, "Oh, Roy."